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[Linguistic Typology] Lexical Flexibility in Oceanic Languages

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UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages van Lier, E. DOI 10.1515/lingty-2016-0005 Publication date 2016 Document Version Final published version Published in Linguistic Typology Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): van Lier, E. (2016). Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages. Linguistic Typology, 20(2), 197- 232. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2016-0005 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:07 Oct 2021 Linguistic Typology 2016; 20(2): 197–232 Eva van Lier Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages DOI 10.1515/lingty-2016-0005 Received July 20, 2015; revised May 5, 2016 Abstract: While word classes are language-specific categories, lexical flexibility remains under discussion. This article investigates this phenomenon in a balanced sample of 36 Oceanic languages, a genetic group that has figured prominently in this debate. Based on a systematic survey of the morphosyntactic behavior of a range of semantic word types in three propositional functions, it is shown how lexical flexibility can be measured and compared across languages and constructions. While Oceanic flexibility is pervasive in some respects, lexical categorization in these languages does not qualitatively deviate from relevant typological tendencies. Keywords: adjective, conversion, lexical flexibility, morphology, Oceanic languages, semantics, syntax, word classes 1 Introduction LEXICAL FLEXIBILITY refers to the possibility, in a particular language, to use one or more groups of lexemes in more than one function, without any morphosyntac- tic adaptations, and without semantic shift.1 Among functional-typologists (but not generativists, see, e.g., Baker 2003), word classes are widely recognized to be language- and construction-specific rather than universal categories (Croft 2001; Cristofaro 2009; Haspelmath 2012). Nevertheless, pervasive lexical flex- ibility – in particular the (lack of a) distinction between major word classes like nouns and verbs – remains a topic for discussion (see Evans & Levinson 2009: 434; Croft 2009). While the (non-)existence of languages without any noun/verb distinction is probably the most controversial aspect of this debate, it is in fact part of a broader problem, namely the meaningful crosslinguistic comparison of 1 A more elaborate version of this definition will be given in Section 2.1. Eva van Lier, Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Afdeling Taal- en Letterkunde, UniversiteitvanAmsterdam,Spuistraat134,1012VBAmsterdam,TheNetherlands, E-mail: [email protected] Brought to you by | Universiteit van Amsterdam - UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ Authenticated Download Date | 10/2/19 1:41 PM 198 Eva van Lier word classes across languages, and the place and status of lexical flexibility in such a typological spectrum.2 An important part of the empirical backdrop of the lexical flexibility debate is taken up by Austronesian languages3 and more specifically by Oceanic languages, which constitute a fourth-level subgroup of the Austronesian family.4 Theclaimsthathavebeenmadeconcerningmajor word classes in individual members of this genetic group vary greatly. On the one hand, some languages are argued not to make any distinction between categories of content words. This holds, for instance, for some Polynesian languages like Tongan (Churchward 1953; Broschart 1997; Völkel 2017) and Samoan (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992), but also for Mekeo, an Oceanic language of the Western branch (Jones 1998), and for other (non- Oceanic) Malayo-Polynesian languages such as Riau Indonesian (Gil 2013). On the other hand, for various Oceanic languages clearly distinct language- specific classes of nouns and verbs are proposed, although in some cases these classes are shown to be strongly multifunctional (see, e.g., Mosel (2017) on Teop, Western Oceanic), emphasizing the importance of defining lexical flexibility in relation to particular constructions. Moreover, some Oceanic languages, e.g., the New Caledonian languages Nêlêmwa and Caac, display a combination of flexible and functionally differentiated word classes (Bril in press, 2017; Cauchard 2017). Finally, in the generative framework case studies of particular languages are adduced in support of 2 I use the term WORD CLASS in the same way as Haspelmath (2012: 110–111), namely as a language-specific category. Haspelmath also gives a useful overview of other commonly used terms such as “part of speech” and “lexical category”. Note that “word class” is a synonym for “lexeme class” (see Haspelmath 2012: 122–124), meaning that inflection is in principle not defining for classification (even though it may be used as a diagnostic for classification in individual languages). 3 Besides Austronesian languages, Munda languages have also featured prominently in the lexical flexibility debate, see, e.g., Evans & Osada (2005), Hengeveld & Rijkhoff (2005), Peterson (2005, 2013), Rau (2013). 4 The genealogical relation between Austronesian and Oceanic is as follows: Austronesian > Malayo-Polynesian > Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian > Eastern Malayo-Polynesian > Oceanic (Lewis et al. (eds.) 2014). As this section shows, lexical flexibility extends beyond the Oceanic subfamily to other Malayo-Polynesian languages, e.g., Tagalog (Himmelmann 2007) and the Flores languages (Arka 2014). Ross (2004: 492) states that “the major typological divide within the Austronesian family is not between Oceanic and the rest, but between innovating Central/ Eastern Malayo-Polynesian and the conservative rest – the rest being Western Malayo- Polynesian and Formosan languages”. Brought to you by | Universiteit van Amsterdam - UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ Authenticated Download Date | 10/2/19 1:41 PM Lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages 199 hypothesized universal categories of nouns and verbs (see Chung (2012) on the Malayo-Polynesian language Chamorro, and the commentaries by Croft & van Lier (2012) and van Lier (2012)). In response to this range of language-specific analyses, which are based on distinct methodologies and have diverging outcomes, the present study provides a first systematic, quantitative overview of various aspects of lexical flexibility across the Oceanic family, using a balanced sample of 36 lan- guages (see Section 2.2.1 and the Appendix for details). The reason for concentrating on Oceanic languages is mainly a practical one: wanting to provide an in-depth account of lexical flexibility in a group of related languages, I decided to densely sample a relatively small genetically defined group – Oceanic consists of 513 languages, according to Ethnologue (Lewis et al. (eds.) 2014) – rather than having fewer languages from a larger group- ing. I show how lexical flexibility can be measured and how it relates to worldwide typological studies of major word classes and the constructions that define them. Thus, in view of the extant debate on lexical flexibility, I assess whether and how much lexical classification in Oceanic languages differs from relevant crosslinguistic tendencies. Specifically, I show that such differences are a matter of degree rather than kind: while Oceanic lexical flexibility is relatively extreme in certain respects, the underlying functional principles of lexical categorization are crosslinguistically well-established (cf. Foley 2014). Moreover, this study further substantiates the idea, advanced in recent literature, that flexibility is not an “all-or-nothing” prop- erty of languages (van Lier & Rijkhoff 2013; Bisang 2013; Floyd 2014: 1501–1502). Rather, it is a gradable phenomenon that can obtain to different degrees at various levels of the grammatical system. Even when focusing on the lexeme level, flexibility varies along several dimensions, some of which are explored in the present study. The article is organized as follows: Section 2 provides theoretical and methodological preliminaries. Section 2.1 outlines the theory of word classes proposed by Croft (2001) and defines the phenomenon of lexical flexibility in terms of this theory. Section 2.2 explains the composition of the language sample and presents the design of the data collection. In Section3Iformulatethreespecificresearchquestions,eachofthemassess- ing a dimension of variation in lexical flexibility, in the context of existing typological research. The answers to these research questions are offered in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the main results, draws conclu- sions, and indicates directions for further research on Oceanic languages and beyond. Brought to you by | Universiteit van Amsterdam - UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ Authenticated Download Date | 10/2/19 1:41 PM 200 Eva
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